"At Last" (Etta James)

Etta James needed a career comeback.  And she was just 22 years old.  She'd had a couple of small R&B hits as a teenager in the mid/late 50s but had struggled to really make a name for herself.
Until she signed with Argo Records, an imprint of Chess, in 1960.
Rather than stick James back in a typical R&B context, label founder Leonard Chess decided she needed the crooner treatment instead, backing her with a full orchestra.  Instinctively, he knew that combining James's Ruth Brown-like swagger with lush strings would be the ticket to her success.
The hit singles and breakthrough album that resulted, 1960's At Last!, include some of my favorite performances ever put to tape.  On that album, James tackles everything from gritty blues to soulful, jazzy ballads, and she does it all seamlessly, sounding much older and wiser than any 22-year-old probably should.
But the apex of the whole disc really is "At Last" (as Chess no doubt knew when he titled the album).
A lot of people don't realize, though, that the song had already been around for almost two decades when James made it her own.  Bandleader Glenn Miller had recorded it with his orchestra for a 1942 cornball musical comedy called Orchestra Wives (you can watch a clip of the band playing the tune here).  I actually remember hearing that version on a Miller compilation album at my grandmother's house, many years before I first heard James's version on the Rain Man soundtrack (1988).  Miller's original is pleasant—a nice, dreamy little foxtrot that's made for strolling to the punchbowl between fast numbers.  (In other words, kind of forgettable.)
But James's interpretation is another thing entirely: the strings swell like a heart ready to burst, while James expertly wrings the emotion out of every syllable, caressing the tender moments and trumpeting every exclamation.  Dramatic without being melodramatic, romantic without being hokey, it's perfect in every possible way.

"Baby, What You Want Me To Do (Live)" (Etta James)

"Baby, What You Want Me To Do" is a blues song written by Jimmy Reed that has been covered dozens of times by everyone from Bill Cosby to Elvis Presley on his 1968 NBC comeback special.  But the version that is the funkiest, grittiest, most gut bucket of them all is the live version by Etta James from her 1964 album Etta James Rocks the House.  
The album was recorded at The New Era Club in Nashville, TN, in late 1963 to showcase James's vocal prowess outside the studio and to prove that the 26-year-old singer had chops that extended beyond the pop material that had earned her chart success.  
The whole recording blazes with raw fire.  James tackles roadhouse boogie, rock & roll, and Chicago blues and successfully conquers all as she blazes her way through a sweaty set of 11 songs in about 40 minutes.  It's the definition of a desert island disc.
In particular, "Baby, What You Want Me To Do" nearly brings down the house.  (And it's only the second song of the performance.)
The track is the perfect combo of James, who is in top vocal form, being backed by equally talented musicians, and all of it getting captured by a sound guy who knew what the hell he was doing: the bass and lead guitars sound like you're sitting a foot from the stage.
If you do nothing else, listen to the stretch from 2:14 to the end.  The band gets a groove cooking that grabs ahold and just doesn't let loose.  (I smile every time the bass guitar begins matching the triplet pattern the drummer is playing on the ride cymbal.)  
Also, James rounds out the song with these growling, wordless vocalizations that mimic the sound of a saxophone wailing--it will make the hair stand up on your arm, guaranteed.
If there were any doubt that she was a baaaaaad gal before this song, that uncertainty is obliterated by the time she says "thank you very much."

"I'd Rather Go Blind" (Etta James)

First of all, go read Rage to Survive, Etta James's 1995 autobiography, written in collaboration with music journalist David Ritz.  It's a blunt, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking account of James's life and substance-fueled career in first person.
In the book, James talks a little about the song "I'd Rather Go Blind," which was recorded 1967 and released on her album Tell Mama in 1968.  Her friend Ellington Jordan was in prison, feeling hopeless and trapped by his situation, so he turned to song to express himself.  James visited him in prison and helped him complete the song, but because she was mired in tax problems, she gave the songwriting credit to Billy Foster, a singer with doo-wop group The Medallions and, briefly, James's abusive husband.  
It was a decision that James later regretted.  As she says in her book, "It bugs me to this day that [Foster] still receives royalties."
On the surface, the song is a ballad about lost love: our heroine tells her man that she would rather be blind than see him with another woman.  But for Jordan, it was a lament about being stuck in jail and not knowing when he'd see freedom again.  For James, it was a confession about feeling that she was stumbling blindly through her relationships and life choices but not knowing how to turn things around.
Despite her battle with heroin addiction, James's voice is in top form.  Yet as confident as her instrument sounds, there's real pain beneath.  The sense of loss and fear in her voice reaches into your soul, and there's no turning away.  It's captivating, heart-wrenching, and beautiful, all at the same time.  It's what the best soul music is all about.